Family

When I first saw my powder room more than 2 years ago, I was disgusted. There was grime, old wallpaper, ugly laminate tile (not that all laminate tile is ugly, but this particular one was) and the most amazing and shocking faux marble sink I’ve ever seen. Even in a house with 4 other people I seemed to be the only one motivated to rid our house of its arguably most ugly eyesore. When my aunt offered to help me redo the bathroom as a gift, I was over the moon thrilled. She really knows what she is doing. She and her siblings completely rebuilt a house for my great aunt and uncle. So she came over one day, handed me a hammer, and told me to get to smashing.

After one of the most liberating smash sessions I’ve ever had, we went to a local chain called HOBO (aka Home Owners Bargain Outlet) to find some tile. They sell short lots so everything is a good price, but what they have is what they have and other HOBOs don’t carry the exact same thing. She found the most glorious wall tile I’ve ever seen in real life. I love it so much I could hug it. Sometimes I go into the bathroom just to look at it. I chose the floor tile and I was a little worried that other people wouldn’t see how they went together like I did. We kept going full steam ahead while I inwardly doubted my choice. Then my aunt showed up with two little cups of grout and finished up the floor tile. That was when I knew for certain I had made the right decision and everyone agreed. It just works together. I was audibly relieved.

Still riding the high of completing the floor, I decided that it was time to install the toilet that had been sitting in my garage for 2-3 months. Removing a toilet is easy as pie and I’d been told installing one was just as easy. So Alex and I hauled that porcelain beauty into the house and unboxed it. Never in my life have I been so happy to see a toilet. It came with instructions that, although poorly written (hose no include, anyone?), guided us through the rather easy process. The most complicated process was probably getting the bowl in place and making sure the wax ring was sealed properly. We slid the bolts along the groove in the blue ring in the floor. These should guide the toilet into the right position. We also placed the wax ring on the bottom of the bowl and pressed it firmly on so it would stick when we turned the toilet over.

This is probably the most accurate depiction of the grout color.

I was really apprehensive about this because there is no way to tell if you did the wax ring correctly before you have completely assembled the toilet. Once the bowl was bolted to the floor, I did pour some water in to see if it leaked out anywhere, but it just stayed in the bowl. You are also supposed to do this so “sewer gasses” don’t leak up into your home. The rest was cake. We followed the directions and we were all ready to hook up the water and test it out when this happened.

The original water hose was too short. For some reason I was unperturbed by this road block. It was a simple fix and we skipped over to Home Depot and picked up one of these:

It claimed that you needed “no tools” and promised “no leaks” and it made good on one promise. I did use a wrench to tighten the bottom nut, but so far there have been no leaks. I am not sure why, but I have been shamelessly telling people that I installed a toilet when they innocently ask me what I did this weekend. I’m sure all they think they’ll hear is errands or family stuff. I can’t help myself. I almost whipped out my phone to show them pictures of my beautiful toilet. I didn’t show them, but I’m going to show you. I’m in love.

Despite the title of this post, I don’t really like rum, but it’s still relevant. This past month has been crazy busy for us because we got another new addition and we went on vacation. First things first, my sister found herself a tiny puppy to call her own. Meet Violet.

Two days after we picked up Violet, Alex and I went on what can only be called the Most Epic Double Date in History. My friend, her husband, Alex and I traveled to the exotic island of Grand Bahama to get some R & R. We really needed it. Life has been pretty stressful.

This was the taxi that we got when we landed in Freeport. Yes it has 6 doors. It’s the wildest vehicle I’ve ever been in and I sort of wish I could drive it everyday.

We saw little lizards like these all over the place. I’m sure the locals think they are pests or totally normal but all four of us were enamored with them.

Here is another creature we were enamored with the entire trip. A little girl we met told us she named her Sprinkles so that’s what we called her. She was pretty accustomed to people, but obviously lived outside.

The one major touristy thing we did was go on a glass bottom boat tour. It would have been better if the sun was out (it makes the water easier to see through), but we had a good time.

Well not all of us. Alex got seasick. As soon as we were off the boat, he felt better. You learn something new everyday! He wanted lunch as soon as we landed, haha. Boys.

This is a view of the resort from the boat. All the salmon colored buildings with white roofs were part of the resort. If you look on the left of the resort you can see a white building with a blue roof. That’s a business man’s castle! He owns all the Burger Kings and KFCs in the Bahamas. There is a slightly smaller house to the right of his that his son lives in. The locals call the houses the Whopper and Whopper Jr.

We spent a lot of time in the Port Lucaya marketplace and during a walk we saw this guy. He was huge! He didn’t scamper away immediately so we stopped to take some pictures.

Near the marketplace is an enormous hotel called the Grand Lucaya and they have this lighthouse attached. You could see it from the marketplace so we headed for it only to find out it’s part of a hotel.

I took this from a little restaurant bar at our resort. You could literally grab a drink and walk straight into the ocean. Needless to say we spent a lot of time out there.

My friend even ditched her flippy floppies to run into the high tide. She may have had one too many Mai Tai’s.

The only part of the trip that was so-so were the short flights we took from Freeport to Ft. Lauderdale. We flew Silver Airlines who had great service and they did nothing wrong, I was just terrified of the small planes. I’ve never flown on an aircraft so small and it gave me the heeby jeebies.

All in all it was a great trip. It gave us a chance to get some much needed relaxation (and a tan).

It all started 47 months ago when we went on our first date. For all you mathmeticians out there, you are right! 4 years = 48 months. We didn’t go on an actual date until our first monthiversary, if you will. Neither of us can remember where we went for dinner, but we saw the movie Away We Go. It’s a Comedy/Drama/Romance movie starring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski about a couple who has an unexpected pregnancy. They travel across the country and to Canada to try to find a place to settle down before they have their baby. We loved it then and we love it now. Why do we love it? It taught us many important lessons. For example, babies like to breathe and they are good at hiding it. We have a tradition of watching it every year on our anniversary, but this year I thought we could make a night of it.

We have been planning on a vacation soon so we are pinching our pennies. My gift to him is an Away We Go night full of home cooked food from the movie and his favorite activity – watching a movie. There may even be some expletives tossed around for good measure.

Menu

Poutine – a delicious Canadian specialty that consists of fries, gravy and cheese curds. There are many ways to do poutine, but we are going classic. A Canadian guy I met at work told me what kind of gravy to use.

Steaks – Because that’s what you eat on classy dates.

We were going to have pancakes for dessert, but we got lazy and had a pie his grandma made him. 🙂

We had a nice little night watching our favorite movie and eating terribly prepared steaks. What can I say? Not all my kitchen adventures are home-runs. We had fun. He even got me an extremely thoughtful gift.

I have worn a Claddagh ring for years, but my cheap tourist shop ring bit the dust earlier this year. He remembered how upset I was to have to stop wearing it and got me a really nice one! Plus he got my ring size right…hmmm.

Here I am. Yes, I’m alive! I had a nice Thanksgiving that reminded me why I’m thankful for my family and thankful I moved out. We went with a non-dramatic no-one-has-to-cook option this year and headed north to this lovely resort. After a few days of gluttony, eyeing the elliptical with rancor, and laughing it up with my fam, I was ready for a quiet few days at home to unwind before the ever-looming Monday arrived.

Then I got the itch to do something productive. God knows why. So I snatched my boyfriend away from his precious football to go Christmas decoration shopping with me. I prefer to not purchase new things every year for every holiday because it’s just not practical. However, we didn’t do outside decorations last year because buying our tiny tree was about all we had the money for. So this year we got lights and a wreath. We may end up getting a few more net lights to cover some naked bushes. Check it.

We have this rickety old wooden ladder left to us by the previous tenant that my man refused to let me climb (despite the fact I’ve probably been on infinitely more ladders than he has). Adorbs. Yeah, I said adorbs, just love me. Those are supposed to be icicle lights, but they seemed to be pretty tightly wound in the box. We are hoping the icicles just fall after some time being hung = too lazy to break out the ladder to force them into the right shape.

Oh yeah, see my wreath? Here’s a close up.

I love this wreath so hard. We found the Christmas section at our local Target and I did briefly fall in love with a wreath of ornaments, but we couldn’t agree on which color(s) so when I saw this I tossed our compromise back to its shelf and snagged this little beaut. I’m going to try to bring in some cranberry garland to our house to pull the wreath and everything together.

My boyfriend did complain that we were decorating too early. Then we pulled up to our house and our neighbor was stringing lights across his garage. And our other neighbor. I don’t think it’s too early because, quite frankly, I don’t want to be out there in the snow struggling to get it done. We felt so great once it was all hung and lit. Kind of like we were going to be good adults one day. One day.